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Need puppy advice [2007]

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mamiecarter

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Just got a new puppy,a 4 month old cockerpoo. Great dog but Jumps and mouths you too much. Sharp teeth. Chews everything. We all love her and she has been accepted into the dog pack.

I was afraid my two male toy dogs would intimidate her but she jumps all over them, They growl but she keeps on until they give up and play.

When do puppies settle down and become less active? How do you find obedience training classes? Advice on puppy proffing the house?
 

mayson12

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Here's a great website for finding a trainer near you. http://www.apdt.com/ .

At four months, your puppy is probably teething, so that's why mouthing a lot. A really good book for some easy methods to help stop the jumping/mouthing or really most unwanted behaviours is "Good Owners, Great Dogs" by Brian Kilcommons and Sarah Wilson. Really easy-to-follow instructions and methods that work.

Congrats on the new puppy.
 

geekette

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Nylabones!!!

I kept one in my pocket thru most of puppy hood. When puppy starts chewing something inappropriate, redirect her to the bone and praise her "good chew on bone!" We had many hours of bonding, when she would lay on my lap and chew as I held the bone.

You might also consider crate training her when you can't watch her to save your possessions and provide some downtime to your other dogs.

I taught my dog that jumping on people has no reward. Sitting Does! People pet you when you're sitting and pay attention to you then. You will have to train all humans to ignore/turn away from puppy when she jumps on them - do not reinforce this behavior with attention!!!

Check out clickersolutions.com and their yahoo group for a zillion ideas on training a dog using positive methods. the Yahoo group tends to have animal behaviorists around.

Congratulations on your new addition!!!
 

Topeka Tom

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Tell the puppy!

When puppies play, they "bite" each other continuously. When a puppy is bitten too hard, it yelps. When your puppy nips, holler "Ow" "Ouch" or whatever comes to mind. They are "hard wired" not to bite any more when they hear that.

So essentially, your job is to be a chicken. :whoopie:

Whenever your puppy jumps, turn your back. It wants attention, so jumping results in the attention being taken away. You could say "No" in a reproving way, to let it know you disapprove.

Get to a trainer soon. You will have to follow a certain order in teaching behaviors, so get started. You want to get to "wait." ("Wait" is different from "stay." When your dog is told to stay it can't move, so you go to it to reward it. That might be the commonest silly mistake people often make when training. Anyway, the alpha dog, the pack leader, decides who can eat and when. Every meal, when you tell the dog to wait while you set the dish down, you are reaffirming your position of alpha. Training a few times every day also reaffirms that.

Feed your puppy meals; don't leave food out all the time. Your job, then, is to figure out how long it will take the puppy to "poop." It will be in the order of half an hour, but each dog is different, which is why that is your job. Once you figure that out, your job in the back yard or on the other end of the leash is to find out what behaviors precede that event. Those are what you will watch for in the house, so you catch the urge before it is consummated.:whoopie:

Get on it, or your dog will never calm down. Some are hellions their entire lives. If that happens, it's not the dog's fault.:shrug:
 

Carol C

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"Good Dog, Bad Dog" is my all-time fave dog training book.

I also agree...nylabones are great to abate shoe-chewing and general boredom. Skip the rawhide chews...they'll eat them too quickly. Have fun! :hi:
 

geekette

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When puppies play, they "bite" each other continuously. When a puppy is bitten too hard, it yelps. When your puppy nips, holler "Ow" "Ouch" or whatever comes to mind. They are "hard wired" not to bite any more when they hear that.

Careful with this - it worked the opposite with my dog - it incited her to do MORE.
 

DebBrown

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We have a five month puppy who must be a cousin of yours! We've had dogs before but never one so mouthy. He is not aggressive but his way of showing attention/affection/playfulness is with his mouth. It has been a long, hard battle. I must tell him "no bite" a hundred times a day.

One thing I taught him was to "lick". I rewarded him with treats like you would for any other command. To train him, I rubbed hot dog on my hand and then when he licked me, he would be rewarded. Now, I can sometimes substitute "lick" when he is inclined to use his mouth. When he is excited, however, it is still tough.

When he plays too rough, we walk away or put him in time out in his crate. When he is quiet and sits politely, we pet and snuggle with him. Still, I often have to put a chew toy in his mouth while I rub his tummy to keep the mouth busy.

Jumping is also an issue for us and our puppy is over 30 pounds now and pretty darn tall. Again, he is ignored when he jumps and pet when he sits. He also has very sharp pointy teeth and has ripped holes in more clothes than I can count. I keep my sewing box on my desk.

Be patient and firm. And remember that he will grow up.

Deb
 

falmouth3

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"Good Dog, Bad Dog" is my all-time fave dog training book.

That reminds me. I took "Good Dog, Bad Dog" out of the library a number of years ago. The cover had been gnawed on and there were bite marks all over the cover. Cracked me up.:rofl:

Sue
 

Topeka Tom

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Chewing or Gnawing

Puppies need to chew to develop their jaws normally. Adult dogs clean their teeth by chewing. You don't want to stop them from chewing, you want to channel it to harmless places.

Talk to your vet about rawhide and real bones. My vet hates them, as she claims to have had to remove too much "cement" from dogs' colons. :( We could give our Jack Russell bones and rawhide, but it always resulted in hard stools. We had to watch when she got a bone to make sure things were moving.:eek:

So real rawhide or a plastic or nylon alternative are good and should be offered and encouraged. Never a ground rawhide product. And they make rawhide shoes, but I've never decided who is silly enough to encourage the dog to chew on what looks like a shoe.:doh:

Our new pup is so gentle she chews on rope tug toys and even her latex squeeky toys and hasn't destroyed any of them yet. For dogs with the opposite tendency, there are Kongs. To encourage the dog, you can smear a little peanut butter inside, if the hole is big enough so it can get its tongue inside.

Separation anxiety is when the dog goes berserk because you left. The classic remedy is to "stuff" a Kong with peanut butter. We also bought a can of cheese spread and used some of that, but our Jack Russell WAS spoiled. Then you freeze the Kong so that it takes even longer to get the treat out. You want the dog to be busy so your leaving isn't noticed.
 

isisdave

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We have a Maltese-Shih Tzu hybrid puppy (that's Malti-shi, never the opposite, as our "friends" suggest) just the same age. We watched all the Dog Whisperer videos and read the book. Puppies for Dummies was helpful too.

Mac just went through the "bite too hard" phase. I think we set ourselves up for it because we let him chew our fingers before his mouth got strong enough to hurt. Now we give him something acceptable, and/or turn away when he does this, and it is decreasing.

When his behavior gets out of hand, I pin him down at the shoulders the way his mom would do, for about ten seconds. He usually settles. If he's too aggressive to us or the other dogs, I pick him up, flip him on his back, look him in the eye and "grrr" shortly to remind him he's not the boss. At five pounds this works OK, but you can't try it on your average Lab. He _is_ getting pretty quick, and he's awfully close to the ground, so sometimes it's hard to catch him!
 

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Be very careful with rawhide bones. Puppies can choke to death on those so if you're going to give your puppy a rawhide bone only do so when you are next to him and take it away when you're not. Even then, if she does choke on something you have to be prepared to do the heimlich manuever on the puppy the way you would on a baby.

When I adopted my pit/ridgeback puppy many years ago they had been training her to be vicious so when I brought her home at 3 months old she thought that she was playing when she was actually biting me-hard and it hurt. My roommate gave me great advice to break this bad habit: Every time she would go for my hand to bite it you take your thumb and you push their tongue back a bit, it gags them and it is unpleasant for them (but without hurting them). Within 3 days she had completely stopped that bad habit. Then I treated her sweetly and she lost all her aggressive behaviour within a week. She is such a great dog. BUT...I made the mistake of buying her old stuffed animals as "toys" for her and she loved tearing apart doggie toys to find the squeeker inside. Unfortunately that taught her that everything with cushion is her chew toy....stupid, stupid me! So don't make my mistake about that. Several shoes and a couch later, I wouldn't give her up for the world and she is the greatest best friend ever. Stay with it-she will pay you back a million times over through the years.
 

geekette

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This thread is bringing back a lot of memories for me!! I was a first-timer with a border collie. The shelter labelled her Hound Mix so I had no idea what I was in for. I had to learn FAST. I cannot say enuf good things about that Clicker-Solutions Yahoo Group - they were my lifeline!

Thank you for saying KONG - I forgot what a wonderful puppy pacifier those are!! I would call them The Best Dog Toy Ever!!!! Be sure to let doggie see what fun they are unfilled, also, or you're setting yourself up for ALWAYS filling them when they are great alone, too. Get the Real Kong - they are nearly indestructible. The Goodie Ship turned out to be her fave of all the Kong objects we'd gotten her.

One other thing that is maybe obvious but needs to be stated - do not leave puppy unattended to chew on a bone.

I think it was the Puppies For Dummies book that recommended the Not For Doggy idea - scold the ITEM and not the dog. We had a horrible time of dish towels being stolen and mangled, so I would get the dish towel and tell it how bad it was and then tell the dog "not for doggie!" and this somehow worked. I wasn't punishing the dog, but the bad object that enticed her. Not For Doggie, tho you may feel silly berating an object, turned out to be extremely effective. She understands that cleaning products aren't for her, rugs aren't for her, sticks in the yard, etc etc. Because we live with Miss Curious, we added "Sniff" to let her examine something, then NOT FOR DOGGIE. Once she gets to see what it is, and learns it isn't for her, she doesn't care about it anymore.

You also need to start a Trade command. If pup has something you value (or they simply shouldn't have it) TRADE for something better. This really should be A Very High Value Treat - the best you have. train the dog that giving up the item she has is worth getting what you will provide.

I would also suggest NILIF - Nothing In Life Is Free. Simple things like Sit before a door opens, you must wait patiently for the treat to be given (no grabbing!) and stuff like that. It goes hand in hand with "all good things come from ME!" so the dog fully understands that YOU control all the resources and dole them out as you see fit. Good behavior leads to more resources being dispensed! She has to do something to get something. Even small things, like you have to pee and poop before you get outside play time. Business first!

We had a problem with 'the jumpey-bities' which would occur when our girl was super-excited (apparently most people never experience this!). Preventing them is now easy: I have a "LOVE" command which basically means stop what you're doing and collect your love. This won't work on a dog that doesn't care about tummy rubs. Once they start (if I have neglected to see the signs coming), I turn my back, cross my arms over my chest, and yell DOWN. I would use this for any inappropriate, aggressive behavior.

Good luck! Puppyhood doesn't last forever!
 

pacheco18

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Professional dog training is a must, in my view.
Worth the money in the long run.
 

Hoc

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Booker died a couple of months ago (a very hard couple of months because of other tragedies, as well, in the interim). However, last Saturday, we finally got a new puppy, Rocky. He's three months, and just out of the pound. A German Shepherd/Rhodesian Ridgeback/Golden Retriever and who-knows-what mix, he's quite cute. But he is probably the mouthiest dog I've ever had.

Despite this, I have traditionally done several things to combat mouthiness, and am doing it on him now. Nylabones, yes. But don't just keep them in your pocket. Throw nylabones, Kongs, toys, everything all over the floor, so he has the ability to chew on something proper. When he starts chewing on you (or relentlessly chewing on one of your older dogs who pleadingly looks to you for protection), say, "Aaa,aa!" and pull out the nylabone/kong/canvas cat or whatever else you have on you for him to chew and stick it in his mouth. Then say, "Good boy!" and praise him lavishly.

Get some bitter apple and surreptitiously apply it to your hands so that when he bites your hand, it is "booby trapped," and he soon learns that it does not taste very good.

Yelp and cry loudly whenever he bites you, so he knows he is hurting you, and learns not to do that.

Also, occasionally reprimand him by yelling, "no!" or "no bite!" when he does it.

Finally, occasionally, while he is still a puppy with needle teeth, if he gets your hand or fingers inside his mouth, push down on his tongue with one of your fingers just long enough to make it uncomfortable for him.

Consistency on all of these things seems to work after a couple of weeks.

On a brighter note, Rocky seems to be very intelligent. House broke him in a day with only three accidents. He has learned to sit, down, shake hands, exit through the doggie door on command and come in only three days. Doesn't seem to be much of a barker, but I recognized that he would be a massive chewer within five minutes of meeting him. So, I was prepared when I got him home, and I have probably spent close to $60 on chew toys already.

Here he is:
Time%20To%20Terrorize%20Rosie%20Again.JPG
 

geekette

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Please give that sweetheart a big ole tummy rub from me!

The smart ones are the hardest - good luck!!
 

mamiecarter

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Puppy Ignores Nylabones! HELP!!!

Bought the puppy Nylabones. She ignores them, Prefers my shoes, Empty plastic water bottles, any thing but appointed doggy chew toy. Help!!! I have one half of two pairs of sandals. Looking everywhere for mates. (how do you teach sandals to come when you call?)

At four months she is bundle of energy. Runs rough shod over my older dogs. But they like playing with her. She is learning not to chew on me. Anyone know what adult Cockerpoos are like? I hope she settles down by age 2 or 3.
 

Hoc

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Bought the puppy Nylabones. She ignores them, Prefers my shoes, Empty plastic water bottles, any thing but appointed doggy chew toy. Help!!!

That's your fault. You should not have shoes or water bottles anywhere that she can get to them. For the first 6 months of a new puppy, I keep my shoes up on the bookshelves and behind closed closet doors. Also keep all of the toilet lids down for about the first year, or you will be training your new dog to drink from your toilets.

Don't just go with Nylabones. Many dogs don't like them. Try a bunch of different chew toys and eventually you will seize on something she likes. I will guarantee you that she will love those giant Cow Knuckle bones, but you should supervise, or the older dogs likely will take them away from her. Try semi-edible bones, like the Booda Bones, cornstarch bones, bones made from peanut shells, etc. You can find them all at the pet store.

Rocky seems to love to chew on those canvas cats that have squeakers inside of them. Also my face. But, we're working on that. ;)

He's quite smart. In two weeks, he has learned sit, stay, come, down, sit up (after lying down), shake hands, "high-5", Outside (run out through the doggie door), and how to jump through a hoop on command. All quite reliably. Will probably work on heel and wait next. . . .
 
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Too lazy to page up to see if this has already been mentioned, but a couuple of things...

Kongs are great. You can fill them with peanut butter, or they even make a couple of flavored fillers for them. Some dogs love them and some don't, but it's worth a try.

Also, for teething, wet an old facecloth or something similar, twist it up lengthwise and freeze it. The dog will chew on it until it thaws and it feels good on their gums. This one I got from a professional dog trainer.

As others have said, professional obedience training is a must for all dogs, regardless of breed. And the dogs love it, too.
 
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